The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK

by Chester S. Geier

  And he was right. But that raised another problem. I’d been counting on having the explorers taken off my hands by their families, but since they did not wish to return to their homes, they were as much a white elephant in total as before.

  “What on earth are we going to do?” I asked Rowe, the same day. “We can’t take care of the explorers forever, as though they were hopeless invalids.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Herb,” Rowe told me. “I’d been intending to take Jimmy up to the Wisconsin place. Since the others are not going to return to their homes, I’ll just take them along.”

  It was hardly the time of year—what with winter approaching—for such a location as Rowe’s Wisconsin estate, but as far as privacy and quiet were concerned, the place was ideal. The house itself was situated in a forest-like stretch of country, and neighbors were few and far between. There was a town some distance away from which supplies could be brought in.

  Rowe laid his plans quickly. He had a caretaker and his wife living at the Wisconsin house. These he intended to augment with hired help from the nearby town. Harris, Rowe’s pilot, was to assist temporarily by ferrying in such supplies as could not be obtained from the town.

  Trane volunteered to go along. He claimed to need a rest in a location such as Rowe’s Wisconsin estate, but I knew he was concerned with Rowe’s wellbeing. Rowe had declined steadily during the last seven years, and the past few months had left him only a shadow of his former self. Trane could manage it, I supposed; he had turned the greater part of his practice over to a younger man, and had been on the verge of retiring ever since.

  I saw them off one morning, when the first snow of the season had started to fall. As the ship dwindled in the sky, I had the curious feeling that it was taking them into a sort of voluntary exile.

  Upon me now was left the unpleasant task of informing the families of Sorelle, Wheaton, and Lauder that their respective men would not be coming home. I could not bear the thought of facing them with what I had to say, and instead wrote a series of letters in which I explained the situation fully and frankly.

  That left only Doris. Like the others, no doubt, she had been entertaining hopes that Jimmy would come around in time, and with her to act as constant companion and nurse, the old state of relations would return. Consequently, it was a shock to her to learn of the move that had been made. In an effort to soften the blow, I made arrangements with Vera to have Doris taken to a winter resort in the South, and I left special instructions with Beth and Andrea to make sure Doris met plenty of young men.

  Then I settled down to my work at the plant. Matters demanding my personal attention had piled up overwhelmingly during my frequent absences, and for the next four weeks I was busy to the exclusion of all else.

  Finally I had things under control again. A restlessness took hold of me. I was curious to know how affairs were going at the Wisconsin place, and in addition I had a desire to see Rowe and Trane. Deciding I needed a short vacation myself, I packed a few things, and pointed the nose of my flitterjet toward Wisconsin.

  Trane met me at the door when I arrived. The profuseness of his greetings seemed strange.

  “Farnam! Say, this is great. Glad to see you again. Come right in. Sure is good to see you. Here—let me help you with your bag. Heard your ship landing at the field, but thought it was Harris returning from an errand.”

  “How’s Rowe?” I asked, as we finished shaking hands.

  Trane sobered. “He’s in a bad way, Farnam—a mighty bad way. Acute melancholia and depression.”

  “As bad as that?”

  “Worse. Farnam, if we could only do something—Rowe won’t live another six months if things continue the way they are now.”

  “My Lord!” I whispered. It was some seconds before I could get around to my second question. “And how are they…the explorers?”

  A cloud seemed to slide over Trane’s face. “Oh, they’re well enough, I guess.” And then, abruptly, “I suppose you’ll want to see Rowe. He’s up in his room. I’ll take you there.”

  The house seemed unnaturally silent and deserted to me as we walked across the hall. “I thought Rowe was going to obtain hired help from the town,” I remarked to Trane. “Where are they? Day off?”

  Trane shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “He did get a couple of women to help with the cooking and housework. They quit after a week. We couldn’t get any one else. The caretaker, Johnson, and his wife, Nora, have been doing practically everything around here.”

  I stopped. “But what on earth is wrong?”

  “The explorers. The townspeople are afraid of them. They seem to have taken Griffin and Hough a bit too seriously.”

  “Damn Griffin and Hough!” I breathed.

  “Farnam, a few days after the women quit, a delegation from town called here at the house. They asked, quite politely, if we wouldn’t leave the vicinity.”

  “Well, if that doesn’t beat—” A sudden surge of anger choked off the rest. I watched Trane bleakly.

  “I told them,” he went on, “that we hadn’t broken any of their laws, and until we did so, they had no right to ask us to leave.” Trane sighed. “We had to keep Harris, since he has to run to the city now for supplies. Tradespeople in the town won’t sell him anything.”

  There seemed nothing I could say which would express my utter amazement and disgust. Trane and I continued on in silence. As we strode up the stairs, a thin, whining sound became suddenly audible.

  I stopped, gripping the banister. “What’s that?”

  The cloud was back over Trane’s face. “One of their machines, I guess. You see, the explorers have made a workshop out of the basement playroom.”

  “A workshop?”

  “You might call it that. Laboratory would be a more accurate description. They’ve got it filled with machines and chemicals and things. About all Harris has been doing lately is to ferry in stuff for them.”

  I watched Trane silently. He was worrying at his lower lip, and it seemed to me that something more quivered on the verge of utterance. But nothing came.

  Rowe was in his room, seated in an armchair near the windows, an opened book lying in his lap. He wasn’t reading, however, just staring moodily into space. He looked around slowly and wanly as we entered.

  “Why, Herb! This is a nice surprise.” Rowe rose from the chair and pumped my hand. “Staying?”

  “Maybe for a week or so.” I could think of nothing else to say. Sight of Rowe had come to me with a distinct shock. He was gaunt and unkempt, and there was a haunted look about his eyes which not even his joy at seeing me could remove.

  “How’s everything at the plant?” Rowe asked, and this, I realized, more to set me at ease than anything else.

  We spoke of business matters for a while. Then talk turned from political events to the weather, and finally there seemed nothing more left to say. After a rather unnerving silence, Trane and I left.

  Dinner that evening was a strange and silent affair. The mood of uneasy tension which permeated the house had by then communicated itself to me quite strongly. Nobody seemed immune to it; I’d been greeted by Johnson and Harris, and later by Johnson’s wife, Nora, and I’d felt it in each of them as tangibly as I’d felt it in Trane at the very first moment of my arrival.

  The only persons present at the table were Rowe, Trane, and myself. I wondered over this for a time; then finally I voiced my thoughts to Trane.

  “Where are the explorers? Aren’t they going to eat with us?”

  Rowe and Trane glanced at each other. Rowe avoided my eyes, and sunk deeper into that apathy which seemed to have become characteristic of him. Trane shrugged.

  “The explorers don’t take meals with us, Farnam. Johnson leaves their food by the workshop door. Maybe they prefer to eat alone, or maybe they’re too busy to join us.”

  “That workshop…”
I muttered. “Trane, have you any idea of what they’re doing?”

  “I’ve wondered about it. But as long as the explorers are keeping themselves amused, it might be best to leave well enough alone.”

  After dinner, we retired to the living room, where we talked for a while over drinks and cigars. Rowe did not stay long; after lapsing into one of his all-too-frequent spells of moodiness, he excused himself and left.

  “Something’s got to be done about Rowe,” I told Trane. “He ought to be gotten out of this atmosphere.”

  “I’ve suggested a trip,” Trane said. “But Rowe won’t consider leaving the house. He seems to feel a strong responsibility where the explorers are concerned.”

  I had an overwhelming sense of futility; it was such an impossible situation from every angle. “My Lord, Trane, how’s all this going to end? Things can’t continue like this forever. Playing nursemaid to the explorers, who don’t seem to give a damn about anything; Rowe, moping himself into his grave—”

  Trane spread his hands wearily. “What can we do that we haven’t done already?”

  I could find no immediate answer to the problem. Fate itself was to decide that for us. And it came in a way and with a suddenness which Trane and I could never have foreseen.

  In the middle of the afternoon of the next day, Trane and I were interrupted at a game of cards by the sound of approaching automobiles. We reached the windows in time to see two cars pull up in front of the house. Men emerged from each; I counted eight all together. They stood in a hesitant group for a moment, glancing uneasily about them. Then they started slowly toward the door.

  I opened the door just as the first knocks sounded. The group drew back, as though they had not known just what to expect.

  “Well,” I said. “What do you want?”

  A tall, gaunt man with a sharp, predatory face stepped forward. He drew back the lapel of his overcoat to allow me sight of a glistening badge. “Sheriff Overton,” he announced. “From town.” He produced a folded oblong of paper from one of his pockets, extended it to me. “Search warrant. We want a look at the house.”

  I made no move to take the paper.

  The fact that people would go to such lengths to satisfy a mean, narrow-minded curiosity left me stunned.

  “But we’ve done nothing wrong!” I got out at last. “We haven’t broken any laws!”

  “It’s not what you’ve done,” Over-ton said. “It’s what you might do. It’s those four explorers. They’re dangerous. You’re harboring undesirable characters. I got a community to protect, and I’m playing safe.”

  Overton’s last words hardly registered upon me. Among the men behind him, I had caught sight of two whose very presence seemed to explain everything. They were Nick Griffin and his bodyguard, Matt Yeager.

  “You!” I snapped at Griffin. “So you’re the one behind this.”

  “You got me wrong,” Griffin protested quickly, though his eyes were furtive. “I found out you were keeping the explorers here, and just wandered into town to see if I could pick up some news. I happened in on this search party.”

  “He said we ought to take a look inside the house,” one of the men behind Griffin muttered.

  “Yeah,” another chimed in. “Said we might all get killed some day if we didn’t.”

  Griffin seemed to contract within his expensive overcoat. “Well, maybe I did make a few suggestions,” he said lamely.

  I don’t know where I got the cold rage that I put into my next words. “Griffin, I’m not going to forget this. You’ve caused a lot of trouble with your rotten, lying newscasts, and this just about tops everything. You put these men up to this merely to gather more material for your vicious lies. Well, let me warn you that this is the last trick you’ll ever pull. Starting here and now, I’m going to use every bit of influence I have to see that you get kicked off the ’vision set. There’s a lot of people whose lives you’ve ruined with your slander. They won’t hesitate to help me.”

  Griffin licked his lips. Yeager looked about him with a faintly bewildered air, as though he did not quite understand what was going on. The men around them moved away, shifted awkwardly.

  “Could be just a lot of lies, like he says,” someone whispered audibly.

  Overton frowned at Griffin. “Well, still want to go through with this?”

  Griffin’s lips worked, but words did not come at once. “Since you got that search warrant—”

  “All right, then.” Overton nodded in sudden decision and turned back to me. “We’ll take a little look around. Just for appearance.”

  “We have nothing to hide, as far as I know,” I said. “Come in.”

  They trooped through the house, like boys passing a graveyard at midnight.

  “Where do the four explorers keep themselves?” Overton asked at last.

  “They have a workshop in the basement,” Trane supplied. “I’ll take you there.”

  Jimmy, Wheaton, Lauder, and Sorelle were standing together in a little group when we entered. It was my first sight of them since they had been moved here. Their beards had grown long, and they seemed much thinner. Their hair was unkempt, their clothing soiled and disheveled. They looked at us expressionlessly, but the jewels in their foreheads pulsed with a rapid play of color, and I had the curious conviction that complete awareness of the situation glowed in their strange, luminous eyes.

  There were gasps and indrawn breaths as the men crowding behind me got the full picture the explorers made. I was not a little surprised myself, for it looked as though the past four weeks had been anything but easy ones for them.

  Trane began to explain the presence of the men from town. I paid no attention. My eyes were darting anxiously about the workshop. If only there were nothing which might be interpreted as dangerous…

  The recreational equipment had been piled at one end of the room. The workshop proper was situated at the other end. It was at this end that we stood. Looking about, I saw that the work of the explorers had been concentrated about a single object—a great cube of wire lattice-work, over which streamers and tongues of golden fire writhed and twisted. The cube seemed strangely unsubstantial, shimmering with the illusion of unreality.

  The machinery, the tools, the apparatus, grouped about the cube, all were familiar to me. The explorers had taken Earthly things and with them created something fantastic and alien.

  There was a sidling movement beside me. I noticed it only dimly. My gaze was fixed upon the shimmering cube with a kind of hypnotic fascination. I had the overpowering sensation of gazing into vast distances.

  An abrupt push jerked me back to awareness. I saw the retreating back of Matt Yeager, who was following another figure across the workshop. Griffin.

  Griffin had eased himself from among the others, and was moving slyly toward the giant cube. Yeager, true to his trust, was following him.

  Trane was talking, talking desperately, trying to convince the men from town that the explorers had made a workshop out of the playroom merely to keep themselves occupied. The others were listening. They weren’t aware of what Griffin was doing.

  Before I could act, there was a low-voiced exclamation. Jimmy darted past me, his face alive with sudden expression.

  Griffin had reached the cube, and his hand was extended as though to touch it. Jimmy reached him, caught his hand, jerked him away.

  “You must not touch that!” Jimmy admonished fiercely. “It is death—”

  Then Yeager reached Jimmy. Disaster struck all at once.

  Yeager’s heavy, scarred features had been twisted with puzzlement throughout everything. Nature had seemingly packed his body so completely with muscle that there had been little if any room left for brain. He had seen Jimmy leap forward and snatch at Griffin’s arm. Griffin, most likely, hadn’t really understood why. But to all intents and purposes, Griffin had been threatened.
It was his duty to protect Griffin. This Yeager understood.

  Yeager caught Jimmy by the shoulder, swung him around. A ham-sized fist smashed into Jimmy’s mouth, sent him reeling backward. Then Yeager followed up to finish what he had started, like a dog that will not cease worrying a rat until all movement has ceased.

  But Yeager never reached Jimmy again. Wheaton, Lauder, and Sorelle, had stepped forward, their eyes blazing with a cold fury. Like a battery of searchlights, the jewels in their foreheads focused upon Yeager. Yeager crumpled to the floor as though abruptly pole-axed.

  Griffin released a scream of pure terror, scurried madly toward the door. Abruptly, he clutched at his chest, collapsed like a limp bundle of expensive rags.

  There were yells and shouts as the men from town awoke into action. They whirled as one for the door, where they stuck, gibbering and clawing, in frenzied efforts to be first to get through it. Then they were through it. The pound of their retreating footsteps echoed throughout the house. Car motors roared into life outside. There was the clash of gears. The sound of the motors faded with distance. Then there was silence.

  Trane roused into motion, went quickly from the prone form of Griffin to that of Yeager. He made a brief examination of each. Finally he straightened up, his face pale and incredulous.

  “They’re both dead. Griffin died of a heart attack. But Yeager—”

  Trane swung around to the explorers. “What…what did you do to Yeager?”

  “We blasted him with a vorgan field of the third order,” Wheaton said quietly. “In other words a lethal beam of mental force.”

  “But that’s murder!” Trane exclaimed.

  “It is justice,” Sorelle said.

  Trane nodded slowly. “In a way it is. But according to Earthly laws—”

  “Earthly laws no longer concern us,” Wheaton said.

  “But Earthly retribution is still something to reckon with,” I put in. “You’ve got to get away from here. There’s no telling what those townspeople will do now. They couldn’t possibly have seen all that happened, and probably think both Griffin and Yeager were just suddenly attacked and murdered.”